Today is the last day of the class I have been taking at the University of Washington. Each Friday I take off early from work and from 2-5 pm I pretend I’m back in college (except for the Frisbee, wargaming, and sleeping-in until 1 pm). The course materials have been dull, and I have been rather bored. But I have found that enjoyment of academic pursuits are a lot about what you put into them … in my case, I get what I ‘paid’ for, since I’ve put little effort into this class. Over the past several weeks, I’ve gotten behind on my semester-end project and had to put in a lot of time this past week to catch up. Ironically, now that I am crunched for time, I find that the coursework interests me and I wish I had made better use of my opportunities to explore some of the more obscure facets. Today I present my class project … I feel a little sheepish about how much more developed it could have been. Hopefully I can bring this lesson forward, if they offer another class that interests me.

This is 4th Avenue, where I go on Friday afternoons for my class.

It is strange to live in the ‘city’ after spending four years in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula. So many things are very convenient and accessible. Yesterday we had cable internet service installed at the house … for the first time ever we are enjoying a heady, high-speed alternative to 56K dialup. While many websites are still slow, download speeds for large content is brisk … it is very pleasant to surf the web without cement blocks on your feet. I spent almost two hours wrestling with our cable modem before I discovered that the connection could not be shared between several machines (only a single IP address is assigned to the cable modem). It turns out that (in order to share the high-speed connection) I need a router to sit between my computers and the modem … at the cost of another $60, arrrgghhh.

This is a strange building I often walk past — I’d hate to be in there if another big earthquake strikes.

Kathy and I have been talking lately about the future … this life in Lakewood feels very temporary to me. I would like to either move back to the Duckabush (if my work would permit) or move closer to work (maybe near the Puyallup or Sumner train stations) once our lease is up with this house in August, 2005. Sometimes we talk about moving to Michigan (although our memories of the winters there have not sufficiently faded). Kathy really likes living in Lakewood … but my folks plan to move away (and I suspect she has the happy ability to be content anywhere). Then there is the question of my brother and his family … will they really move to Fort Lewis, or will they stay in Kansas, where they are very happy? Our families seem to be cursed (like Superman and Clark Kent) to never live in the same town. While I was finishing school in Virginia, Mark was in Germany. By the time he was assigned to Fort Monroe (VA), I had moved to CT. Then he was in Dayton, OH, but left around the same time I moved to Michigan. It would be typically ironic if my brother’s family moved here only to have us pull up stakes and move away.

Truth be told, we do have some misgivings about moving back to the Olympic peninsula, even if circumstances permitted and we could bring ourselves to give up high-speed internet service. Kathy and I were very hurt by the relational damage that came out of our disagreement with the local church’s leadership, and we’re not sure that we could be happy there after all that has happened, and the way that relationships have been soured. It is such a tiny community that a little discord goes a long way.

My folks are enjoying the use of our house in the Duckabush valley as an experimental retreat center, while they continue to wait for the main Retreat House to be built. After a thorough cleaning by our beloved Judy, my folks have been furiously outfitting the house with beds and furniture. I understand that the first official retreat is scheduled in December … it is exciting to see this dream become more of a reality. On Saturday we are holding a board meeting out at the ‘Duckabush House’ (as our former home is now styled) and will likely discuss plans to move forward now that we finally have a permit to build the main retreat lodge. It is sad to me to think that we lived there all those years and only now that we are not there is the retreat center being built … again, we seem to be out of step with the proper schedule of things.

Every day, when I come to the platform, there are two identical trains sitting there. One goes south to Tacoma, while the other either sits there for another 30 minutes or heads north to Everett. The trains are both marked ‘Tacoma’ but only one is the proper train. It is a source of considerable confusion for me, not what I need at the end of a long day.

I’ve been reading in I Kings about the dedication of Solomon’s temple … what a surprisingly interesting passage! The description of the temple furnishings was reminiscent of the tabernacle passages in the Pentateuch … a modern Christian is left wondering why so much narrative was provided on a physical description of the temple when the time or space could have been (better?) used in moral instruction or revelation of God’s nature. I think that our post-modern cynicism and familiarity with spiritual things may cause us to seriously underestimate the holiness and majesty of God. Solomon had 120,000 sheep sacrificed (and sundry other animals) for the dedication of the temple of the Lord God. Most of us would have stopped at a ceremonial 12, if we could bring ourselves to sacrifice at all. The mind boggles at the scale of the bloodshed … yet Solomon’s long-winded and prophetic prayer seems to indicate that he had a pretty good idea of who God is. It must have been really something to be working in the temple when the Presence of God filled the temple area with a cloud … how awesome to see with your eyes a shadow of God’s majesty.

It is always good to be reminded of the awesome power of God … I know that I am prone to continually exaggerate my own importance in the scheme of things. Yesterday I was feeling gloomy (mostly due to a lack of sleep) and was thinking critical thoughts about the way that God is managing my life. Sad to think that I have still not learned the lesson that it is not all about me.

One of the things that troubles me is that I am not enjoying my work very much. A lot of what I do is pretty tedious and there is little opportunity to do anything well. I am almost always under time pressure such that I find myself always reacting and never working proactively. Much of my work is of the use-once, throw-away variety, which is unsatisfying to me. I tend to enjoy building something that has at least some lasting value … a non-trivial challenge in the world of software development. Even the best of computer systems cannot hope for much more than a five-year lifespan. Sadly, the prospects for change are fairly limited … there is no immediate hope of changing this job into something more interesting.

Almost immediately it seemed to me that the Holy Spirit put a thought into my head: what did the Lord do before beginning his public ministry at age 30? Here we have the Creator of the universe, King of King and Lord of Lords, who is willing to waste his time doing rough carpentry? Talk about throw-away work … from an eternal perspective, the things He built out of wood didn’t last very long. Surely He had better things to do with His time? Yet we find no mention of His activities between age 12 and 30.

I find that somehow comforting, as I speculate about the plan for Jesus’ life on earth. Were those 18 years important in terms of building a reputation, or giving Jesus credibility? Or were they critical in fulfilling the requirement that He be ‘tempted in all ways that we are tempted’? Whatever the reason, isn’t it likely that this time of my life, which seems to be going nowhere, is accomplishing some divine purpose?

It is hard to be patient, though. I guess that is one of the temptations Jesus faced … it surfaces in His remark to Mary at the wedding feast in Cana … “My time has not yet come.” (John 2) A human (and Jesus was fully human, yet fully God) feels the pull of time keenly … it must have been hard to wait on the timing set by the Father for the beginning of His public ministry. Jesus’ response to Mary’s faith and the immediate launching of His public ministry make me wonder if He was surprised to find that, in fact, the time had come for the gathering of His disciples and the beginning of His teaching and healing ministry.

Now that I have turned 39, I am a little more conscious of my mortality and the time that I have spent on various pursuits, some of them pretty worthless, some of them having eternal value. I guess all I can do is be patient, trying to redeem the time at work as best I can, watching for the opportunity to make something useful out of this time and learning whatever lessons God teaches me.

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It is a cool and dreary Friday afternoon, and the train is nearly full. Like many others, I hate fighting the southbound traffic on Fridays, which is usually worse when the roads are wet, and so I made sure to take the train today. I feel a little let down, because it was my birthday today, but there was nothing particularly special about it (at least so far).

Traditionally, I always take my birthday off from work, ever since I was scheduled to work at Holiday Inn on the evening of my 17th birthday, and decided to quit as a birthday present to myself. I have often joked that it is a warning sign to any employer if I don’t take my birthday off … they ought to start looking for a replacement. I think this may be an exception to that rule, since I have so little time off accrued, and much of it is spoken-for next summer. Having been unemployed for so long, I expect I’ll think long and hard before quitting any job.

This morning I was awakened before my alarm by a heavy, pounding rain. Here in the beautiful Northwest, we prefer rains that waft in as a gentle mist, keeping the foliage green and the reservoirs full, yet not seriously inconveniencing anyone. It is a courteous, gentlemanly rain, not like that brash, villainous rain they get in the Southeast.

But there is nothing courteous or gentlemanly about a rain like this morning’s, especially one that wakes me at 5:20 am. It is certainly true that I do not sleep as well with Kathy away. I roll around all night in a luxury of space that I simply do not deserve, and my conscience knows it and keeps my sleep uneasy.

There is a stark contrast between my daily schedule and that of the rest of my family, these days. As a reader might suppose from reading this blog, my life could be described by some as being comprised of long periods of boredom relieved by short periods of ennui. My work, fascinating though it may be to some, does not lend itself to epic story-telling, and my off-hours are spent mostly in quiet pursuits, such as reading or playing computer games. Insomniacs Anonymous has frequently sought me on as a guest speaker, and I understand that an MP3 file of my famous lecture on the relevance of IMS DB/DC COBOL programming is a popular download among those suffering from severe sleeplessness.

Kathy, however, is at the hub of all that is exciting and interesting, as her brother’s wedding preparations near completion and relatives flock in from all corners of the globe. I keep trying to persuade her to write a blog entry, but she cannot seem to tear herself away from the events of the day long enough to reflect. I understand that a power outage has struck the hotel where many of the out-of-town visitors are staying, and that some relatives are missing, presumed, well, missing. My children have joined Grand-dad in a frenzy of last-minute preparation of the Thornhollow grounds, but further details are not available.

Instead, I’ll regale you with tales of the course I am taking. In a partnership with the University of Washington, my employer offered a series of “continuing education” courses to those of us who require that sort of thing. Although my first choice course was cancelled, I did manage to enroll in another course, and spend three hours of my Friday afternoons across town listening to lectures about XML.

As it turns out, this is subject matter to rival my gripping IMS DB/DC discussion, and I find myself glazing over almost as soon as I settle in to my seat at the lab. To make matters worse, food and drink are banned from the classroom, so I am unable to jolt my system with a healthy swig of Diet Coke. From time to time I stagger out and take a gulp from the container I secret outside the classroom … I feel like some kind of derelict hitting the bottle. Maybe I should get a flask or a brown paper bag.

Recently the professor took a survey, and I had the opportunity to comment that I found the pace “way too slow”. It would seem that others agreed, because the instructor spoke with much more animation today and we were granted four hands-on exercises instead of the usual two. I suggested that he ask more questions, and so I cudgeled my molasses-filled brain and tried to actually answer when he did, in fact, ask. As with many things, you get out what you put into things … once I began to take a more active interest, I found myself more able to stay awake.

I had a lovely visit with my parents last night … strange to eat dinner & dessert with just the two of them … there was even a substantial amount of the Black Forest Cake left over! This would certainly never have happened if my horde of children were around … as it was, Dad and I put a brave face on it and each suffered through two pieces of cake. My Mom (who claims she ought to know this kind of thing) insists that I was born on the 6th of October. She hints that the doctor who delivered me was a bit on the inebriated side, and probably forgot to fill out the paperwork until he recovered from his hangover. Dad, ever the diplomatist, suggested we celebrate on the 7th as a sort of a compromise, and so I was treated to a birthday dinner and window-shopping excursion.

Thanks to my self-indulgent nature, I already have everything I could possibly want, and a fair number of things that I don’t want (as witnessed by the piles in our garage). I seem to be a difficult person for whom to buy a present.

I had planned to watch a DVD on my laptop today on the train-ride home … got the case out & opened it up … some fiend had put the case back but left the DVD in the player! Imagine my annoyance. Well, actually, readers of this blog probably know all about annoyance, as they hopelessly sift through the blather hoping for an occasional interesting word. I’d blather on, but the train seems to be arriving in Tacoma.

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My folks took the older three kids to Lakewood for a couple of days … Kathy and I spent the time with only two little ones. It is very strange, remembering how life was, six or seven years ago when Joshua and Rachel were small. Of course, two children can suck up all your available time and attention just as well as five, except that nap time is a little quieter. After church I spent some time working on the Wilderness Northwest video, and then we went for a walk together in the late afternoon. We had a lovely visit with one of our neighbors; when we refused their invitation to come into the house (we were, after all, enjoying the outside) they all came out & sat on lawn chairs. We sat and talked for almost an hour … I was worried that we might have outstayed our welcome, dropping by unannounced as we did.

These two hardened criminals are frequently featured in the Police Blotter section of local newspapers.

One of the many things I like about living on the Duckabush is that most people have time for each other. Even a group of local teenagers (who could, in all courtesy, have simply made an appearance and then gone back to whatever they were doing) sat outside on the porch with us and talked. Of course, it didn’t hurt that David and Sarah were playing to the crowd, providing substantial entertainment by running around and making strange noises. There was a fierce kitten present, who kept stalking and pouncing on the kids, which was pretty funny. I think the kitten has some self-perception issues … she acts as though she were a 150-pound mountain lion.

Eventually we went home, and I made my rounds in my local garbageman role, gathering trash from a few neighboring homes (to help defray the cost of our dumpster). I wrestled with David and Sarah for a good long time, and somehow no one was injured (possibly a first), although David laughed so hysterically I thought he might faint. There is something very satisfying about the unbridled laugh of a little boy … it warms a very deep part of the soul that doesn’t get much sunlight.

You may have noticed that Sunday’s blog entry was written by Kathy … for some reason, it pleases me greatly. I guess it is fun to have her join me in building something that I enjoy and value … “fellow workers in the vineyard” and all that (a quotation from one of our favorite holiday videos, Christmas in Connecticut).

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It is Friday, the 13th, (well, it was when I wrote this, anyway) and so far nothing particularly unlucky has happened to me, although a pigeon just flew past my table inside the ferry and is now terrorizing nearby passengers with the fear that it may be incontinent. When I worked at the Department of Agriculture, one of my co-workers once suffered from a pigeon’s indiscretion on his bald spot … he was thoroughly disgusted, as I recall. Hopefully this bird can escape through the open doors at the front of the ferry without offending in this manner.

We were delayed leaving the dock by a large Egyptian ship, the Wadi Alrayan, registered out of Alexandria. Carrying in the neighborhood of 700 sea-containers (11 rows, 13 columns, stacked on average 5 high = 715), this squat barge-like vessel wallowed across our watery path in languid insolence. One can only speculate as to what Seattle could be shipping in such quantities to Egypt, if that is indeed the intended destination. At the rate they are currently traveling, I hope it isn’t anything perishable, like, say, coffee?

Today is the last day of Vacation Bible School at the Quilcene Bible Church … the reports I hear from the kids are very positive. Joshua was given a role in the closing program skit, which he invariably enjoys. I hope to get to the church in time to see some part of the program, if the road construction delays are not too severe.

[Roll the clock forward two hours ...]

As it happened, I walked in the door of the church just as Joshua was narrating for his group’s skit … I hope that he saw me standing in the back. He did a great job, and was complimented by a number of people. At the end, he stepped out of his role as narrator and joined those in the skit who were crossing over the bridge from death into life — he wasn’t too cool to physically climb up on the table and walk across, even though he could have avoided it as narrator. I guess he knew which side he wanted to be on — I was proud of him. Now I’m sitting outside, behind the church, in self-imposed exile with my two youngest (and loudest) children, as the closing program continues in (relative) quiet.

Kathy and I are thinking seriously about moving to a rental house somewhere closer to my work. Whatever the future may hold, it seems that we must plan for the strong possibility that I will not be able to work from home in the near term. Kathy’s friend Julee was here Wednesday and Thursday, singing the praises of Lakewood. We contacted a rental agent and found a few homes that might provide enough room for our horde while not breaking us financially. One possibility is that we might make our existing home available to The Refuge over the course of the next year. Alternatively, we might find an inexpensive smaller home, and live part time in town, part time in the country. I think that both plans have merit … it will largely depend on what we find in terms of available rental properties.

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